


Antibiotic

by Quiddity



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M, but it's something that's been sticking with me and I had to write anyways, pretty much just a scene from an AU i'm not interested in fleshing out, some light grossness, without the actual zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 17:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8170130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quiddity/pseuds/Quiddity
Summary: When your boyfriend decides to break his arm AFTER civilization shits the bed, it's kind of a pain in the ass to be his nurse when you have no idea what you're doing. 
Keith is neither nurse nor chemist. He still tries.





	

                “You awake?” Keith asks. His voice is as soft as the worn cloth he wrings out in the pan of water he keeps by the bed, lest he aggravate Shiro’s headache. Shiro groans as Keith folds the cloth and sets it to his brow. Keith frowns. His fever has only gotten worse overnight. Keith digs his fingers into Shiro’s sweat-damp hair, pushing his fringe back out of his face.

                “Babe?” Shiro’s voice sounds scratchy and Keith grabs a bottle of water. He twists off the cap. Shiro tries to sit up on his own but Keith shushes him and nearly tips over the bottle trying to help him sit up enough to sip some water.

                “Yeah, it’s me,” Keith sighs. He holds the bottle to Shiro’s lips, but the older man insists on doing it himself, shuffling up to sit against the head of the bed, taking the water bottle from him and draining half of it in one go.

                “Good morning,” Shiro hums, licking his lips. They’re chapped, but Shiro hardly seems to notice it, much like the cloth that’s fallen from his brow and into his lap.

                “Good morning to you too,” Keith says. He could fight Shiro into resting properly, but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Keith pulls over a box of medical supplies he has on the nightstand, pulling it into his lap as he settles crosslegged beside Shiro. “You feel okay?” he asks. Shiro offers up his right arm before Keith can ask for it.

                Keith tries to be as gentle as he can as he untucks the end of the bandage wrapped around Shiro’s bicep. He had last changed it the night before just before Shiro had gone to sleep, but already there was a brownish red spot growing through the wrappings. Keith tries to school his expression and hide his concern as he pulls the bandage free.

                “I’m fine,” Shiro says. He sets his jaw when Keith pulls away the last layer of cloth and it sticks lightly to his skin. It’s a small wound, an inch-long break in the skin halfway between Shiro’s shoulder and elbow. Shiro pays more attention to his water than the sharp look Keith gives him. Gently, Keith feels the bruised and soft skin around the wound. It’s mottled yellow and greenish, and some parts are starting to turn gray.

                It’s been four or five days since Shiro broke his arm. Keith can still remember the car jack screeching a second before it gave out completely and car had come down on top of Shiro. It had caught his arm badly when Shiro tried to sheild his face on reflex and not only snapped the bone in his upper arm, but displaced it so badly that the bone had stabbed through muscle and skin. They had set it as best they could, but Keith wasn’t a nurse and Shiro knew little more than he did.

                Despite Keith’s diligence and Shiro doing his best to be a good patient, his arm wasn’t looking good. The whole area around the break was swollen and too hot. The pain kept Shiro up at night and the fever was getting bad enough to give him nightmares. It sapped all his energy and even just sitting up like he is now is taking everything Shiro has.

                This is what Keith gets for insisting they change the oil in their car instead of searching out a new one.

                “It’s worse today,” Keith says. He picks up the cloth from Shiro’s bare chest and soaks it again in his pan of water. He tries to wipe away the smears of antibiotic and blood as lightly as he can. Even the barest brush of cloth over the discolored skin has Shiro turning pale and sweating. “I’m really sorry,” Keith sighs. Shiro only shakes his head, his jaw working as he grinds his teeth.

                “It’s okay,” Shiro breaths. Keith drops his cloth back in the pan and breaks open the tube of antibiotic cream.

                “Yeah, but you’re not,” Keith sighs. Shiro blanches and drains the rest of his water, weakly crushing the thin plastic in his hand.

                “I’m fine-“

                “It’s infected, Shiro.” Keith says, his voice firm. His brows pull together tightly as he spreads the clearish cream across the wound. He can see the way Shiro tenses and tries not to flinch away from the light touch. Keith doesn’t say anything as he wipes his hands clean and unrolls some fresh bandages.

                “Your fever is worse,” Keith adds. Shiro only lets out a slow breath, measuring it out as Keith wraps bandages around the swollen part of his arm. He remembers something about pressure supposedly helping with swelling but he’s not sure of the rules or if it would even apply in this case. At any rate, Shiro’s in too much pain already to try and put him through that.

                “It’s not-“ Shiro starts. Keith huffs and clears his things away, setting it back on the nightstand. He gets up long enough to come back with another wet cloth. Shiro’s panting when he settles on the bed again and too pale by far.

                “Hey,” Keith presses the cold rag to his temple and he seems to rouse a little. “You’re okay.” Shiro smiles a little and presses into Keith’s hand. They both know he's lying, but there's a certain power in pretending that he's not. For Keith, at least, it helps him keep his head. Helps him focus on giving Shiro everything he can.

                “I know. I’ll… I’ll probably be up to help you in a while. Give me an hour and I’ll..” Keith shakes his head firmly and Shiro lets his thought trail off.

                “I’m going out today to find you some better painkillers. Hopefully some antibiotics. What’s it called, amoxicillin or something?”

                “Not by yourself. I’ll help you-“ Keith growls and scrubs the rag aggressively over Shiro’s short hair.

                “Yes. By myself. I won’t even be that long,” Keith huffs. He stands and starts trying to convince Shiro to lay down again. “You get to sleep as much as you want and when you wake up I’ll have some pills for you.” Shiro slowly lays out on his back, taking care not to put any pressure on his right arm.

                “I’ll look around and see if I can find you a coke to take ‘em with,” Keith hums fondly and gets a soft chuckle out of Shiro for that. He feels a little better that Shiro is resting, but still concerned with how little fight he put up. He must be totally exhausted.

                “Maybe I’ll let you spoil me more often,” Shiro hums, his eyes lidding as Keith gently scratches the back of his head.

                “Well, keep getting sick and I’ll have to.” He leans in and gives Shiro a quick kiss. “I’ll be back in a couple hours, tops. Just take a nap.”

 

 

                An hour later Keith is behind the supermarket in the middle of town, inspecting the latch on the metal door and the lock holding it all together. It looks old, and he’s confident, so he shoves the end of his crowbar through the loop of the lock. He wedges it in the seam of the door, already panting through the heat of the day as he double checks his surroundings.

                “Please don’t be super loud,” Keith mutters to himself. He adjusts his grip on the other end of the bar, takes a deep breath and hauls back as hard as he can. Metal shrieks and the padlock snaps so easily that Keith ends up punching himself in the chest and nearly dropping the crowbar all at once.

                “Fuck, okay,” Keith huffs. He regains his breath and runs to the corner of the building. In the far off distance he hears what might be a car engine. In the quiet of the bright summer afternoon, with no other noise besides the hiss of cicadas, it could be miles away. Keith had heard it on the way into town, but it's never come close enough to bother him. As long as he's in and back out again, he shouldn't have trouble. A quick look confirms his suspicion that he’s still alone in the general vicinity, which is the only thing that really matters right now, so he books it back to the door and wrestles it open.

                The air smells of stale dust and a vague rot that makes Keith thankful he can’t see whatever is left of the produce section. A quick look at the signs hanging from the ceiling lead him to the pharmacy and he makes his way over, taking care to look down each aisle for any signs of undead company.

                Ten feet from the front counter of the pharmacy Keith hears something rustle. He presses himself flat against the wall, straining his ears. Whoever is in there apparently has no idea what being careful means. Keith can hear him stepping around between the shelves in the back of the pharmacy, knocking together boxes and rattling pills as he tosses them around.

                It shouldn’t be hard to take out this idiot. Keith reaches back and pulls his dagger free from its sheath. He peeks over the edge of the counter. Good. They guy is behind a shelf on the far end of the room. He’s humming so loud to himself that Keith vaults over the counter easily, his shoes barely making a sound as he lands on the other side.

                He stays low and moves quick. The guy is taking his time, seemingly totally unaware that Keith is even there. He kneels at the end of one of the shelves. He watches the other man’s shoes, some ugly high tops that tickles something in the back of his mind. Keith shoves it back. The shoes turn away from him and Keith takes his chance.

                He launches himself up. The man squawks and they both go crashing to the ground in a shower of pill bottles. One knocks Keith in the back of his head and he shakes it off, shoving the edge of his blade up under Lance’s chin.

 

                Lance?

 

                Lance stares at him wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open in surprise. Keith can only stare for several seconds while he tries to puzzle together just who he has at knife point.

                Keith hasn’t seen Lance since the Garrison fell and everyone had had to scatter out into the desert. That was six or seven months ago. Lance is thinner, more tired and ragged looking than he remembers but, considering Keith's been assuming the guy was dead, he looks half decent.

                Lance opens his mouth, closes it again and his eyes roll nervously. Keith realizes he still has the knife pressed to Lance’s throat. He backs off the pressure and Lance takes a panicked breath.

                “Fucking Christ, Keith!” Lance exclaims. For that, Keith keeps his weight on Lance’s chest, keeping his knife within view. “What are you doing here?”

                "What are you doing here?!" Keith spits back, puffing out his chest. "I heard you from halfway across the store, dumbass!" Keith looks around and finds a duffel bag bulging out with Lance's stock. He narrows his eyes back at Lance, who holds his hands up palms out in submission.

                "You're going to give me some antibiotics and painkillers," Keith says. Lance flaps his hands around as if emphasizing that he's already given up on a fight.

                "Yeah, yeah, go ahead man," he starts, his words quickening when Keith waves his knife a little closer. "I'm just out on a stock run take whateveryouneed- KEITH!" Lance yelps. He flinches back Keith vaults up off of him and steps over to the duffel bag, pulling out boxes and bottles looking for the few names he recognizes.

                In a modern society there's other people who are supposed to keep track of all these strange names and chemicals and just pass them out to whoever needs them. Before the fall, Keith never needed to know the generic names for strong painkillers and antibiotics. He has the feeling that he's potentially tossing away the very thing that will save Shiro simply because he doesn't know what it's called.

                Keith keeps half an eye on Lance when he sits up. There's something in the back of his pants. Keith whips his head up and stares at the handle of a pistol, then glares hard at Lance.

                "You pull that out and I'll gut you," Keith threatens. Lance just looks like Keith's already tried it.

                "Dude. I'm not gonna try anything," Lance says, voice quiet. His brow furrows in concern and, after a tense second, Keith goes back to looking through the bag. "Where have you been?" Lance asks.

                "Around," Keith says. He pulls out a paper bag, someone's prescription they never got to pick up and rips it open. There's a bottle of big white pills inside marked 'Amoxicillin'. Keith breathes deep as he shoves it into his jacket pocket. That was the most important thing, the antibiotics. Shiro can probably live without the painkillers, but Keith still roots around for some. Lance moves slowly, trying to look at what Keith is searching for but doesn't move to help or even to stand and keep at what he was doing before.

                Well, not too surprising. Keith's already threatened to disembowel him. He's probably too scared to do anything.

                "So uh, who are you looking for?" Lance asks tentatively.

                "Who?" Keith asks. He holds up a box and squints at it. Well, he can't even pronounce that one. Probably not safe to just shove that into Shiro. It goes into the growing pile of rejects.

                "Well yeah. You said antibiotics and painkillers right? You look like you're fine," Lance says, wrapping his arms around his knees. "You with someone?"

                Keith pauses and watches Lance. He's so keyed up and nervous it's hard to think about anything but grabbing the painkillers and running. But he knows Lance and hanging about in the rought world after the apocalypse hasn't seemed to change him much. He still looks like the lanky kid who would strut around the halls of the Garrison shit talking before every exam. The same kid who would lose all his energy and try to hide the fact that he was hiding behind Hunk every time their results would come in and Keith would have outpaced him again. Lance still looks like nothing more than the well-meaning idiot that he's always been.

                "Shiro," Keith says, once he determines that Lance can't be anything other than harmless. Lance perks up.

                "Shiro's still around? Holy shit, dude." Keith frowns, thinking about the nasty infection spreading in Shiro's arm. "How is he-" It all seems to catch up to Lance at once. "Oh."

                "He got hurt," Keith says. The bag is empty and Keith still hasn't, as far as he knows, come across any painkillers. He stands and starts going through what's left on the shelves.  Lance is quiet, but finally he gets up and starts to look through the shelves as well, though Keith is unsure if he's helping or just going back to his stockpiling.

                He's already got the antibiotics but he can't spend too much more time looking for painkillers before he has to get back to Shiro. It might not be enough. Keith hates to think it, but just these pills might not be enough. It weighs on him, what that means.

                "I'm worried he's gonna lose his arm," Keith admits. Lance stills across the room. The silence drags on for too long and a knot builds in Keith's throat.

                "It's just the two of you?" Keith nods, blinking at the small text on the bottle in his hand.

                "I can't do anything for him," Keith breathes, his frustration showing. "It's only been like, a week, and he can barely sit up anymore." He hates it. He hates seeing Shiro so tired and weak because he got hurt doing something so stupid. Keith shouldn't have insisted that an oil change would be nothing. They should have just gone on with a different car, no matter how hard it would have been to find one as reliable as the one they were trying to fix. It would have been so easy in the long run if Keith hadn't been so fucking stubborn.

                Lance comes around the end of the aisle just as Keith is pressing the heel of his hand to his eye. He tries to come closer and Keith smacks him in the chest. Lance ignores it, grabs his sleeve and holds it tight as Keith breathes through his teeth and glares unseeing at rows of orange bottles.

                "Maybe not by yourself?" Lance starts. He's hedging in, like he's stepping on glass. Keith shakes his head.

                "I'm trying-" Lance shushes him.

                "I know. I totally believe you are but listen," Keith stares at him out of the corner of his eye. He jerks his arm away and goes back to searching. "Hunk's coming back to pick me up in a few minutes and we're gonna go back to camp."

                "You two don't know what the fuck you're doing any better than I do," Keith growls. Lance sighs irritably.

                "We don't, but there's like thirty other people we're staying with. Lance shoves his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out a list covered in neat, swirling script. "Look, one lady worked in an emergency room. She gave me a list of stuff to pick up for everyone. I'm not out here just grabbing anything I can get my hands on, man."

                Keith snatches the list out of Lance's hand. There's a neat, bulleted list, each item a carefully printed name and, beside it a purpose. He's already seen many in Lance's duffel bag. Near the bottom are a few names followed by '- painkiller'. Keith pushes the list back at Lance's chest.

                "Help me find one of those on the bottom," Keith says and turns back to the shelves with more confidence that he knows what he's looking for. Lance rolls his eyes, but still moves to help him.

                "Are you listening? Hunk's got a truck. You can come with us, pick Shiro up and- oh, here," Lance says. He holds out a bottle to Keith, who looks it over, then shoves it into his opposite pocket.

                "You trust them?" Keith asks. Lance nods without hesitation.

                "Yeah, we've been staying when 'em for months. And like..." Lance shrugs, helpless, and drops his voice. "If he does end up losing his arm..."

                "He'll do better there than just with me," Keith finishes for him. Lance nods, but Keith doesn't take it as an insult. He's not a doctor. He doesn't know the slightest bit of amputation or even when it's needed. He can't make a call like that and more than likely he'll end up killing Shiro whether he decides to try it himself or not.

                "Okay," Keith says and sighs heavily. Moving Shiro is going to take a lot out of him but he doesn't see Shiro having much to complain about, considering he already knows Lance and Hunk from the Garrison. "Okay. We'll go pick him up." He's putting a lot of faith in Lance's words but he's already learned his lesson on his bullheadedness the hard way. He won't let it get in the way again if it means keeping Shiro around as long as he can.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading~ This has been sitting half finished in my binder for like a month so I'm happy to finally post it.


End file.
